17. Insubordinate Bawbags #2
“Come on, Pup,” I invite softly. “This house has four bedrooms, and we bunk two a piece, so there’s one left over for ye.”
I stop short of offering my hand, converting the urge into a squeeze of Bear’s shoulder. It’s not easy for him to climb down once he’s set someone in his sights.
While Milo groans and peels himself from the squashy sofa cushions, I instruct Bear, “Stand by for new orders.”
Milo hesitates then, looking between the Dogs and finally at me. “Not ye, Pup. Ye need some sleep before ye keel over. We’ll talk shop, yer not missing anything, and then I’ll wake ye for tea.”
He scrunches his nose in an almost comical way, and I play back what I just told him, trying to work out which bit he got stuck on.
“Dinner,” Guardian translates.
Milo’s lips form an “O” shape, and he continues his journey out to the stairs. When I turn to follow, to help him with his bag, Thriller catcalls. I shove my hands deep in my pockets.
Heaving his bag up onto his shoulder, he wobbles a little as he finds his balance under its weight, then chuckles to himself as he sets off up the stairs. I watch Milo until he reaches the top then turns right down the corridor and out of view.
When I return to the living room, and claim Milo’s vacated seat for my own, I find it still warm and smelling faintly of apples. I settle into the comfort it offers and scrub my hand over my face.
“I owe you an apology, Ranger,” begins Bear.
“Naw, ye owe Milo that. The Pup’s not just a Package, he’s an asset, and we’re damn lucky to have him.”
“I didn’t want to say this in front of Milo, Ranger, but…” Guardian’s serious composure garners my full attention. “When we got to your location at the coffee shop, there was a confused barista, broken chairs and tables, but no body.”
I blink. Speechless. My wolf had mangled that guy’s arm and hand, had gouged his flank, and had bitten so deep into his clavicle it’s a wonder he kept the arm at all.
Milo had been equally convinced about the sickening quality of his skull crunching when it bounced off his floorboards earlier this morning.
What does Guardian mean there wasn’t a body?
There’s no way he just got up and walked out.
“Broken glass everywhere, as if something big and strong had gone through the window.” Tuesday gives me a pointed look.
“Car, probably. The barista couldn’t remember a thing beyond that she’d made a customer an iced drink in a to-go cup and had been rinsing the blender with her back to the window when it happened.
There’s no CCTV, and whoever it was had driven off before we arrived. ”
“That’s similar to how Milo described the perception of the residents in the Lost Colony—they have no memory and no awareness—but what I saw was the barista frozen in time.
Even the water in the tap was unmoving.” I sit forward.
“It must be a feature of his magic, whoever this fella from the Office of Time is.”
Across from me, seated at the breakfast table like he was this morning, Delilah opens his laptop. “I’ve been researching this Office of Time since Milo first mentioned them…”
“I’ve been there,” Guardian adds, finally leaving his watch post against the wall and settling closer in. “Papa used to take me back when he was special envoy to King Solomon.”
All heads turn his way. It’s rare that Guardian talks about his private life, even more rare that he talks about his parents. We all know his dad’s an archangel and his mama’s a human, but beyond that the man’s a vault.
“The man Milo described, and the way he phrased things, makes me think he’s a head of one of the departments—of which there are eight. We’ll need to narrow down the suspect pool.”
Reluctantly, I push up from the sofa, and without me needing to ask, Delilah hands me another roll of Kraft paper and a marker pen from our luggage that Tuesday must have brought in from the truck.
I pin it over the tally chart he stuck on the wall earlier and divide it into eight columns—one for each of the departments. At the top, I pen the title “Time.”
“It’s not Time,” Guardian says definitively.
I spit the pen lid into my hand. “What’s not time?”
“The man Milo described. Time is who Papa would meet with; they’re old friends. But Time is… eccentric, and they were getting bored of a growing mortal population who had ever-increasing complaints.” Guardian unfolds his arms and steps closer.
“They installed the Office of Time as a way of delegating the workload, but around a millennium after its inauguration, Time vanished—and not even Papa has heard from them since.”
Guardian takes the pen from my hand and begins writing names in the columns.
“We can rule out the departments of Luck and Destiny: Fortuna and the Parcae are female. Which leaves us with six possibilities. The departments of the Past, the Future, the Seasons, Generations, Transitions, and Eternity.”
Guardian taps his pen on the final column. “But what you need to know with all these people, is that they are ancient. I mean that in the biblical sense. They’re as old as time. You won’t find employee pictures on a website.”
I blow out a long breath. Werewolves are well educated in the history of our kind.
How Generals Romulus and Remus built a sanctuary city to protect us from persecution at the hands of humans who didn’t understand our second nature.
How they navigated the politics of ancient civilisations to set the foundations of the rights we live freely by today.
While names like Fortuna, Janus, and Saturn are familiar, I wasn’t aware they still lived among us, and don’t have the first clue how we’re supposed to go about gathering intel on these gods. I hadn’t even heard of the Office of Time until today.
I stiffen as pieces of this puzzle start to fall in place.
When I mentioned the Office of Time to the Admiral earlier, that connection was minimised and the conversation topic changed. But Milo was sent here because he mentioned them on the phone to the Witches Council.
The General’s Office sent us here to locate the Luna del Lupo. What they didn’t tell us was why they wanted it. Now we know. But who is it Romulus plans on keeping safe with it? This is a man who will fold his own brother away in the fabric of time.
Until I understand exactly how the Luna del Lupo will protect every Romulan wolf, not just the General, from the effects of this magic—and what that means for Milo—he’s staying right where he is.
My gaze drifts to the ceiling above my head, and my wolf strains to monitor the rhythmic beating of his heart while he sleeps.
I rub the heel of my palm over my left pec as if I can massage out this threat to my pack.
“Ranger?” Delilah asks, and my gaze drifts his way. He’s our strategist; if anyone’s got an approach on this, it’s him.
“Can you provide a visual description of our new Target?”
“Aye,” I confirm. “I can build you an A to H.”
Retrieving a pack of wipes from the side pocket of his backpack, Delilah wraps the pen lid I spat into my palm neatly inside one, gives me another, then turns his laptop my way with the screen already prepped for me to enter our Target’s details.
While I type, Thriller pipes up from his cosy chair in the corner of the room. “So, they’re what, exactly? These heads of departments?”
Guardian explains, folding his arms across his chest. “They were mortals, ordinary humans, voted into position and granted immortality and the necessary powers by Time in order to do their jobs.”
“Not vampires, then? Just… really old humans.”
Tuesday cracks out laughing. “What the fuck is wrong with your brain? Of course they’re not vampires—one of them just walked into a coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon.”
Thriller’s wolf’s eyes flash a brighter shade of green, and his once-steepled fingers form fists as he cracks the knuckles.
“What’re ye getting at, Thriller?” I ask, diverting that fight. Tuesday’s a sore loser.